Finally finished Dracula...

I'm not going to waffle on as much as I usually do because I'm unsure as to whether I'm making a new post correctly...being the simpleton I am, I'm finding it hard getting to grips with this blogging malarky. I still can't work out how to follow more people :(

Anyway...Dracula...I finally finished it and, to be perfectly honest, was slightly shocked at the ending...it was far more 'happily ever after' than I expected (despite the fact that quite a few people had died throughout) and I thought the final attack against Dracula would be a bit more graphic...like the 'Van Helsing cutting the heads of the 'vampire women' bit was...the fact that that part was so detailed and graphic made the actual ending a bit of an anti-climax, to my mind. Also, I always think it's a bit of a cop out when people say that novels are 'too long' as sometimes it's just another way of saying you found something boring but, I'm going to have to say it...I thought it was too long. It was certainly too long for my liking and it wasn't because I found it boring...for the most part, I was really into it but there was a time, towards the end, when I felt things could have happened a bit quicker.

There were a lot of things connected to gender that I found interesting when reading Dracula - there were some parts that I thought were quite sexist with regard to the representation of women (the fact that women weren't told of Van Helsing's findings as soon as the men were as they supposedly couldn't handle it, for example) however, at times, I thought there were very postive images of women being presented - Mina, for example, was, especially when we first meet her, a strong, independent woman. I started thinking about the role of women in the novel after the 'vampire women' in Dracula's home appeared...they had a power over both Jonathan and even, at the end, Van Helsing and although that in a way is quite a significant thing (as the people 'in charge' of the rest of the novel's action are male), it can be argued that the 'vampire women' and Lucy, after she is bitten, only have power because they were given that power by Dracula...a man. Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree thinking of the novel in terms of gender but I couldn't help but think about it - the fact that the characters in the novel kept generalising with regard to gender in an 'all men...' 'all women...' type 'sweeping statement' way.

Going back to the length of the novel (sorry!) - because it was long, felt like things were repeated when they didn't need to be which gave the impression that the reader wasn't trusted to pick up on little clues themselves and were being subjected to the same piece of information repeatedly in order to get the idea...for example, when it is implied that Mina had been visited by Dracula in the night for seemingly ages after, there were references made to her being pale before it was actually revealed for definite that she had been bitten...after the first couple of mentions of her being pale I'd thought 'oh oh...I know what's coming' but rather than just getting straight onto what the reader has already been led to think...the hint was dropped, to my mind, several more times than necessary, as if the writer wasn't confident enough that the reader would pick up on subtle clues.

I'm going to end it there as, I think I've started repeating things myself!...I haven't said what I was planning to say at all so hopefully I'll get more to the point next time...in the meantime, I can't find a copy of Doctor Faustus anywhere...but I shall keep looking.